Swell
by dethlypoison
Summary: There's nothing left. Only memories and the could be, would be, should be. But drastic measures may lead to spastic pleasures.  And if it means escaping the Dull, he'll embrace this man with all his might.
1. Prologue: Dullberries

The Dull. It's all he thinks about—worrying his thumbnail. Dominant … overwhelming … unforgiving. Still smog that coats everything grey. It robs … _has _robbed—him, among other things—left him numb, the world bland.

And all its cheesecake, too.

He's poked at it with a fork, contemplating, wondering how long he's been looking at it for, how long it's been since he could taste it, savour it … love it like he used to. How many times has he taken a blueberry, driven it away from its cluster, farther and farther away …

Until it teeters on the precipice of life and death.

And he knows that there's this theory—a next world, a place called Heaven, with its golden clouds and silk-robed angels and some sort of eternal peace but he knows better. In a place where all you taste is happiness…

The Dull would undoubtedly reach him there.

When the blueberry does fall, its sweet sauce dripping to pool around it on the plate, he hopes it goes to Hell. It's seems a much more entertaining place. At least between all the anger and sorrow and self-pity, there's emotion.

Something so vile it's palpable.

But he knows it isn't _him _going there. It's just a blueberry. _Just a blueberry. _He knocked it off a fucking cheesecake cliff and he doesn't feel a thing about it. But it must be exciting … the way it tips, falls, bleeds.

Blood pond.

If cake was one of the reasons he had once wished himself immortal when he was a teenager, why was he here?—A mere mortal in New York City, a shell of his former self; brooding in the Dull. There were things to do and cakes to eat …

People to eye-fuck.

And yet, he barely recalls the last time 'butterflies' danced in his stomach, making him feel giddy, excited (like he should about mass-murdering a dozen bloody blueberries). He can remember only a time when their acidic counterparts came, defacing him like Pop rocks for the intestines.

Refrigerated blood-blue eyes of a narcissist.

Maybe if he could see those blues past the Dull they would infuriate and arouse him like they used to, make him feel excited (like he fell off a cliff), consume him, throw him, make him feel sick. To clean up a mass-murder, to rot away on the sand, respecting death, forever hating that fucking …

Primary colour of a live worth living.


	2. Cheesecake Cliff

To make pleasure out of repeated pain, its music moves, as if always back to a first love.

His scene was the coast at first light. Sitting atop a lengthy stretch of rocky overhang that had assembled itself so long ago above rigid and unkind ground, his view encompassed the sky, tinged a grayed indigo; the sea, its depths of fictitious compassion and its ever-winged fishermen; the shore, of cold rock, packed sand and weed; and the rise of the ground, its bluff, grass, and seaweed-sugared wind that made love to the land. The weather that morning was sweet, full of sunshine and cutting cold and he had found he was happiest here happier than he had been in years. There was not one touch, one tingle of that familiar ache. No ancient memory to spring out of the void and reprimand him. And no people. This was new, untainted, a pioneer s caress. It was brilliant and he thought that he wanted it to be his refuge, even if he never admitted that he was in need of one.

Minutes flew by while he sat, simply watching the rising sun progressively lighten the sky. It seemed to struggle though the world was easy and he felt he could take a little security in that. But he knew the sun was not stressed at all. His eyes were just tired and his sense of time abstracted by jetlag. Humbly, he questioned if anything really struggled at all. Out there, surrounded by the infinite, the planets were deep-set in their ageless dance around the sun. There were neither words nor mouths to express strain. They just danced, uninspired and invariable much like a defective ballerina with her eyes gone dead; dancing to that unseen force, never plucked but never placed but still twisted until disfigured and he, just a frail little human on the still-small-ball called planet Earth, had no control and that was undoubtedly what he hated the most.

It was Truth and the stuff that ruined whatever pipedream he happened to imagine for himself. Nasty, gnawing Truth that spewed acid through spaced daggered teeth. You have no control, it jeered. And he could see it, lying in the dark, stealing the breath of dreams and killing them in a fat speckled throat. It was creeping up on him, every day he grew older, getting closer and closer to licking the back of his neck with its

His gut shot into his throat and his fingers reflexively clutched the rock shavings beneath him while he dry heaved saliva down over the cliff. Breakfasts were never his thing. A chill racked through him when the braying movements subsided, spreading goose bumps across his skull and thighs. Miserably, he rose, tossed good manners to the wind and used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. He had tarnished his refuge and now it was time to leave.  
>As he paced back to his car, shame racked him hard and fast making him wish he could scale down and take it with him in a bottle. Perhaps, it could be his treasure his not-quite-vomit sundry with the sand a trinket that he wore around his neck to clink with the picture of a person now gone. That would be nice. Where he was going, there was nothing as peaceful and unassuming as this coastline, nowhere he felt he belonged more than this spot right here. He could stay right here, living off nothing until he died and melted back into the ground.<p>

He reached his car, glared at the lustrous black of it and wondered why people found these vehicles exciting at all. They weren t crafted by the hand or made with love Maybe it was the speed, the sensation of being cheek-to-cheek with their lame demise. Really, he thought sadly, how had ever found the prospect of death exhilarating?

The wind blew threw him then and he could not help but relate it with his stand upon the ledge at Duelist Kingdom, when he had brought his rival to his knees. And all to save his brother.  
>He felt sorrowful again and turned around to take one last look. The rising sun and its glittering waters welcomed him, told him to jump and sink into its love but he bit his cheek, burrowed his heels and bid it farewell. Life was not over for him, not now, not ever. He would keep being reborn and that, he knew, was the monster lurking in the dark, hissing through its speckled throat.<p>

In the end, he became his old self, settled in leather and turning the key, aware and feeling oddly romantic for thinking so deeply so early in the morning. He had a stressful day ahead of him. This was merely a reverie or an additional tug from a past life. Didn t he know he had plenty of those just lying around?

He pushed it out of his mind, focused on the now. He was going to Domino, he told himself mutely as he turned the key. Then he told himself his car was depressing. The bland hum of the ignition being turned and the motor starting hardly served to excite him. He suddenly wanted a very loud car, a very expressive and old car, bold but sleek and something very American. A fixer-upper, he thought they called them.

He had never been reborn into America. America was too new and he didn t need anything reminding him of what needed to stay in the past. He needed that car because he still wanted to prove it. He made his own future, isn t that what he had once said? He did not know whether or not he could still believe that. The second he had returned to Japan he had wanted to go and visit the coast, feel the breeze, look at the sea, watch the sun rise. Was that his own desire or was that Fate s want?

He grimaced suddenly, put his head down on the steering wheel. Fuck Fate, he cursed to himself, it could just get bent. Fuck Atlantis, too! Fuck Egypt and Pegasus, Mutou and Jounouchi Hey!

He blinked and his stomach flopped. It had come for him, hadn t it? It had come, swift and as unjust as it always seemed to be. There was another holler, faint but resounding in his mind, then another. It was Fate calling out to him, telling him it was there, forcing him to follow its every command and he would, willingly at that. Anxiety rattled him. How could he not have noticed there was someone else there with him? Why had they not said something earlier? Were they watching him, spying on him, planning to kill or kidnap him?

The yell came again, then a figure in the rear-view mirror. Suddenly Fate didn t seem very menacing dressed in a gaudy blue hat and a gray, shapeless jogging outfit. Kaiba almost laughed at himself. His foot eased off the gas pedal and he pressed the button that allowed the passenger-side window to descend. They were still approaching hastily, as if they did not know he was not going to leave. That thought allowed something slithery to move up his spine. If it was Fate, indeed, he would find out soon enough.  
>A terrified-looking man leaned in through the window and asked if his cellular phone had a connection. His first reaction was cold and he shook his head, flipping the window s button up, this time to ascend it.<p>

Please! Please! S-Someone just jumped off the cliff and I think they might be dead or-or dying and we really need to call someone who can help! Paramedics, police, someone anyone! Just help!

His finger went limp and he arched an eyebrow, taking in the information, the obvious distress on this person s face and the chance of underlying foul play.

PLEASE! He s going to die!

Kaiba s veins leapt beneath his skin in surprise but he nodded calmly and stepped out of his car. The other man immediately ran to the other side of the vehicle to meet him. A curious look came over his face and his mouth opened, moved, but no words came out and then it was gone. Fear was back with its tongue-numbing paralysis.

This may have been Fate, he really didn t know. He might have been drawn here so that he could help the dying, possibly fabricated person. He might have been drawn here so that this odd and suddenly appearing man could toss him off the bluff. Or perhaps, it was all just a simple coincidence. Was there really such a thing, though? Wasn t he just a broken toy damned to go round and round? Would the gods let this funny-looking man kill him?

Receiving no answer, he opened his phone and began dialing an emergency number, following the frantic man toward the other side of the bluff. Silently, he decided that nothing really mattered anymore. He was dancing his unseen dance, eyes gone dead. There was nothing left to live for. Mokuba was never coming back. 


End file.
